Patricio Naviais a Clinical (Full) Professor of Liberal Studies and Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University. Navia is also a Professor of Political Science at Universidad Diego Portales in Chile. Ph.D. in Politics from New York University, an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Political Sciences and Sociology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has been a visiting professor at Princeton University, New School University, Universidad de Salamanca, Universidad de Chile and NYU Buenos Aires, and a visiting fellow at the University of Miami. He has published scholarly articles and book chapters on democratization, electoral rules and democratic institutions in Latin America. As founding director of Observatorio Electoral at Universidad Diego Portales, he has co-edited Democracia Municipal (2012), El sismo electoral de 2009. Cambio y continuidad en las preferencias políticas de los chilenos (2010) and El genoma electoral chileno. Dibujando el mapa genético de las preferencias políticas en Chile (2009). His books Diccionario de la política chilena (with Alfredo Joignant and Francisco Javier Díaz), El díscolo. Conversaciones con Marco Enríquez-Ominami (2009), Que gane el más mejor: Mérito y Competencia en el Chile de hoy (with Eduardo Engel, 2006) and Las grandes alamedas: El Chile post Pinochet (2004) have been best sellers in Chile. He is a columnist in El Líbero in Chile, Buenos Aires Herald, and Infolatam.com. He has previously penned columns for La Tercera, Capital and Poder magazines in Chile, Perfil in Argentina.

Cassandra Sweet

Cassandra Sweet is a political economist with expertise in international development. Her applied policy work spans projects for the World Bank, the World Health Organization and the United Nation’s Economic Commission on Latin America. Dr. Sweet has taught at Bard College and the Instituto de Ciencia Politica, Universidad Católica de Chile. She is the author of myriad studies in editorial houses and journals including World Development, Economics and Politics and Globalization and Health. Dr. Sweet received her BA in political science from Stanford, and her PhD and MPhil from the University of Cambridge. Based in New York, Dr. Sweet has lived over a decade in Latin America and is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish. She has been awarded grants from the Truman, Fulbright and Gates foundations. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Santiago-based think-tank Espacio Público.